THIS WEEKEND
Love was in the air as new releases, led by Message
in a Bottle, and Academy Award nominees,
led by Shakespeare in Love,
provided a wide variety of options for holiday moviegoers. While overall
sales could not match last year's frame which saw Titanic
and the debut of The Wedding Singer
gross over $50M, traffic picked up at theaters after the last couple of
weeks which saw only few new hits.

Cupid came in the form
of Kevin Costner this year as the actor's latest film, Message
in a Bottle, floated to the top of the
box office with a lovely haul of $18.9M for the Friday-to-Monday holiday
period. Romancing moviegoers in 2,538 beach houses, the Warner Bros. picture,
which also stars Robin Wright Penn and Paul Newman, averaged an adorable
$7,428 per theater and stands as the year's second best opening behind
Payback.
Its three-day sum came in at an impressive $16.75M. Based on the best selling
novel by Nicholas Sparks, Message in a
Bottle follows a woman's search to find
the man who wrote a love letter she finds washed ashore.

Once considered a highly
bankable star at the box office, Costner has stumbled in recent years with
film's like Wyatt Earp,
A Perfect World,
and last winter's costly dud The Postman.
But the successful debut of Message
certainly proves that he can still attract a large crowd as it opened better
than most other star-driven mature romances of the past year like What
Dreams May Come ($15.8M debut), City
of Angels ($15.4M), Meet
Joe Black ($15M), Hope
Floats ($14.2M), and The
Horse Whisperer ($13.7M) which was also
based on a popular novel. Message
also performed much better than Costner's last romantic outing Tin
Cup which opened in August 1996 with $10.1M
and finished with $53.9M.

Besides the starpower
of Costner, other factors helped give Warner Bros. the top spot over the
holiday weekend. Valentine's Day was the perfect frame to launch a romantic
drama of this type especially since mature women have not been targeted
by the studios since Christmas. Fans of the novel turned out in droves
and the studio's marketing campaign packaged and sold the film splendidly.
Two prior weekends of sneak previews also helped generate good word-of-mouth
even if critics were not all that impressed. Barry Reardon, president of
distribution for Warner Bros., indicated that Message
in a Bottle, as expected, skewed older
female with 85% of sneak preview audiences over age 25 and 60% being women.

Stepping down one notch
to the runnerup spot was Mel Gibson's Payback
which made off with $15.6M for the Friday-to-Sunday period and $17.7M over
the four-day holiday frame. Off a slender 26% from its opening (when comparing
three-day weekends) the Paramount action pic has taken in $42M in its first
ten days which puts it a little better than Gibson's thriller Conspiracy
Theory which grossed $40.7M in its first
ten days back in August 1997. Look for Payback,
which has rounded up $44.1M as of Presidents' Day, to reach a similar final
gross of around $75-80M making it one of the top five February releases
of the decade indicating a very strong performance for this time of year.

My Favorite Martian
landed in third place in its debut weekend with a good $11.2M over the
four-day frame and $8.8M over the Friday-to-Sunday portion. The Disney
remake of the 1960's television series invaded 2,275 theaters and averaged
a decent $4,915 over the long weekend. Savaged by critics, Martian
stars Jeff Daniels and Christopher Lloyd and benefited from its Disney
brand name and from being the only major offering for the family audience
over the holiday weekend. The effects-heavy Martian
could utilize its monopoly over the family
crowd to attract some respectable business over the weeks ahead.

In fourth place was
Miramax's surprise comedy smash She's All
That with $10M in ticket sales over the
four-day period. Sliding down 26% when comparing three-day weekends, the
high school romance remained popular with young adults and has bagged $42.6M
in 18 days of release. She's All That could
climb to $60-65M and is sure to become one of Miramax's top ten grossing
hits of all time.

New Line Cinema brought
its own brand of retro love to theaters with Blast
From The Past which stars Brendan Fraser
and Alicia Silverstone. The comedy about a man living in a bomb shelter
for over 30 years and finally visits the modern outside world grossed $7.8M
over the Friday-to-Sunday period and $9.2M during the four-day frame. Opening
in fifth place, Blast checked
into 2,542 locations and averaged just $3,604 per site over the long weekend.
By comparison, Fraser's last wide release, Disney's George
of the Jungle, opened with $16.1M in July
1997 while Silverstone's previous pic, Excess
Baggage, debuted with $6.3M over the four-day
Labor Day weekend that same year.

Oscar nominations can
often translate into currency as evidenced by the performance of Miramax's
Shakespeare in Love
this weekend. A potent combination of winning 13 Academy Award nods, an
addition of over 1,100 playdates, and the Valentine's Day and Presidents'
Day holidays allowed the film to collect a ton of shillings. Shakespeare
surged 127% and grossed $9.1M over the four-day frame to place sixth for
the weekend. The John Madden-directed smash has accumulated treasure to
the tune of $46.7M and should ride the Oscar wave to box office glory in
the weeks leading up to Hollywood's red carpet night. Jointly produced
by Miramax and Universal, Shakespeare in
Love should have no problem zooming past
$75M and if it wins the coveted Best Picture Oscar, it almost assuredly
has the potential to cross the $100M domestic milestone.

Strapped with eleven
Oscar nominations, Saving Private Ryan
enjoyed a 10% boost from last weekend's three-day gross to $4M for the
long weekend. That brings the DreamWorks blockbuster to a cume of $199.9M.
On Tuesday, Saving Private Ryan
became only the second 1998 release to cross the $200M domestic mark joining
Armageddon.

Buena Vista expanded
their critically-acclaimed comedy Rushmore
from 103 to 573 sites and jumped into the top ten with $3.7M over the four-day
period. Featuring Bill Murray, Rushmore
delivered the second best average in the top ten with a sturdy $6,526 and
raised its total thus far to $6.3M. The studio will further expand its
release on Friday.

Patch Adams
was brushed aside by the competition falling to ninth place with $3.6M
over the long weekend. With $127M in the bank, the Robin Williams comedy
now ranks as the comic's fourth highest-grossing film ever behind Mrs.
Doubtfire ($219M), Aladdin
($217M), and Good Will Hunting
($138M). Varsity Blues,
from Paramount and MTV, took the ten spot with $3.1M. The high school football
saga has scored $48.2M to date.

Just missing the top
ten were two other World War II era Best Picture nominees. Miramax's Life
is Beautiful earned $2.8M for the long
holiday weekend after expanding to 644 sites from 221 last weekend. The
Roberto Benigni pic's domestic cume has climbed to $21.6M nearing the $21.8M
performance of Il Postino
which was also an Italian-language hit, distributed by Miramax, that scored
an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Soon, Life
is Beautiful will hold the distinction
of being the highest-grossing foreign language film to play in the United
States. Overseas, the comedic drama has already grossed $80M pushing its
worldwide total across the $100M barrier.

Terrence Malick's The
Thin Red Line grossed $1.9M over the four-day
campaign raising its total to $33M. The Fox war picture was off only 19%
when comparing three-day periods.

With all the new releases
and Oscar darlings hogging up screens and the attention of moviegoers,
four holdovers fell out of the top ten. A
Civil Action has claimed $54.1M thus far
and should seek a final settlement of about $60M. Sony's Stepmom
has tearfully collected $89.2M and is likely to expire with around $95M.
Look for You've Got Mail,
which has downloaded $112.8M to date, to conclude its trial membership
with approximately $120M which would put it a bit shy of Sleepless
in Seattle's $127M from 1993. Finally,
last weekend's undercooked romantic comedy Simply
Irresistible fell hard onto the kitchen
floor in its sophomore frame and should finish with an appetizer-sized
$6M.

Compared to projections,
Message in a Bottle
opened a couple of notches north of my $14M Friday-to-Sunday forecast.
Both My Favorite Martian
and Blast From The Past
debuted close to my respective three-day predictions of $10M and $9M.

Take this week's NEW
Reader Survey and voice your opinion
on the Academy Award nominations. In last week's survey, readers were asked
if they thought Tom Hanks should win the Oscar for Best Actor for Saving
Private Ryan. Of 1,264 responses, 52%
said yes, 44% voted no, and 4% did not know.

The top ten films grossed
$90.4M over the four-day frame which was about even with last year's three-day
tally when Titanic
dominated with a February record $28.2M, and down 7% from 1997 when the
Star Wars
Special Edition remained at number one with a four-day holiday gross of
$17.5M.

Be sure to check back
on Thursday for a complete summary, including projections, for next
weekend when Jawbreaker,
Office Space,
and October Sky
all debut.

This column is updated three times each week
: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary),
Sunday (post-weekend analysis with
estimates), and Monday night (actuals).
Source : EDI, Exhibitor Relations. Opinions expressed in this column are
those solely of the author.